I refused to believe Sloane was that childish.

She was putting together an escape plan that much was clear. Annoy the hell out of me, steal her stuff back, then leg it into a crowd, hoping I would be glad to see the back of her infuriating ass and give her a head start.

That was how my targets usually did it, but too bad I always found them. After that, things usually became worse…for them, not me.

We were at yet another motel deep in the backwater of some asshole state in the middle of the country.

It was getting worse. The need to stick my cock in Sloane’s pussy. I wasn’t sure if it was because she was so Goddamn infuriating, or I was attracted to her.

But she was still the boss’s precious daughter, and she was still off-limits to the likes of me. A grunt, a nobody, cannon fodder on the front lines of a criminal blood feud.

Don’t disappoint me, Chaser. You know what happens when you do.

I squeezed my eyes shut at the memory. One shot is all it took to destroy someone’s life. One shot to bind them to you forever.

Either Sloane knew what she was talking about or she’d made a lucky guess. I wasn’t a biker, not really. I ran with Fortitude because I owed them. Simple as that.

Death begat death, and revenge begat revenge. Round and round it went, and it never stopped.

In the end, it wasn’t worth it. It fixed nothing.

It didn’t bring her back, and now I was stuck, and it wasn’t just in a shitty motel room with the daughter of the man who’d tricked me into shitting my life down the toilet… No, that part was just the icing. The cake… Fuck, it was the endless servitude caused by a debt that would never be repaid. A life for a life.

Hindsight was a brutal kick in the balls.

* * *

Narrowing my eyes at the sight before me, I closed the bathroom door with a bang.

Sloane was in the top she liked to wear to bed, reading a book that looked more like a brick than anything else. Her feet were bare and her legs…they were long as fuck and appeared as if they hadn’t seen direct sunlight in months.

Rubbing my damp hair with a threadbare towel, I tossed it over the back of a chair. The shower wasn’t cold by choice, but it had helped.

“What’s that?” I asked, unable to hold onto my curiosity.

“It’s a book,” she retorted. “You know, with the pages and the words and stuff.”

“Hilarious.”

Stepping past her, I grabbed the book and tore it from her grasp. She kicked up a stink as I turned it over in my hands. Fuck, it weighed a ton. Explained why her bag killed my back every time I lifted it from the trunk.

“Theory and Methods in Political Science,” I read aloud. “What the fuck is this for?”

“I’m studying to get my college degree,” she said, snatching the book back. “I’m not giving up on it just because you kidnapped me.”

“I wouldn’t call it kidnapping,” I said, the word college the last thing I was expecting her to say. It was another clue to the interior she was hiding underneath all that childish sass.

“You’re forcing me to stay, so it’s pretty fucking close.”

Snorting, I glanced at the bright yellow marker in her hand.

“What do you want that book for anyway?” I went on. “You want to be a politician?”

She shrugged.

“You’ve got the mouth for it.” I tossed the book onto the bed.

She blew me a kiss, which negated the cold shower.

“I don’t know what I want to be,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But I don’t want to be dumb doing whatever it is.”

I raised an eyebrow, my gaze dropping to the book again. That was a mystery I wasn’t sure I wanted to unravel.

Leaving her to her studies, or whatever she wanted to call it, I sat at the table and turned on the television. Scrolling through the channels looking for a local news station, I couldn’t help glancing at her again.

Her head was buried in her book, the marker squeaking across the page. If what she’d said was true, then her father had tried to whore her out like a common prostitute and had likely raised his hand to her when she’d said no. As a result, she didn’t trust or believe other people had her best interests at heart, but here she was still trying to invest in her future with that stupid book.

And I was taking her back to a life of probable prostitution even though she was on a hit list.

I was stuck, and now, so was she.

I could say I didn’t care all I wanted, that it was just my cock talking, but…

There had to be a but.